At around 6 a.m. on Thursday, May 6, Rio de Janeiro was waking up to yet another massacre. Twenty-seven residents of the Jacarezinho favela in Rio’s North Zone were killed during an operation with over 200 police officers, armored vehicles and two helicopters that ended with photos and videos of a bloodbath.

Bodies scattered in various parts of the favela, blood everywhere while locals tried to hide, children crying and houses unceremoniously invaded by police officers armed to the teeth and in rage after one of their colleagues was killed once the operation was starting—making a total of 28 dead in Rio de Janeiro’s largest massacre amid a police operation and the second-largest massacre as a whole in the state.

Not that massacres, known in Portuguese as chacinas, are uncommon. Cecília Olliveira, executive director of the Fogo Cruzado Institute, a data lab on armed violence, explained that “In the last 5 years, there has been one massacre per week in Greater Rio de Janeiro.”

Full article at Latino Rebels’ website. Date of publication: 20/05/2021.